Current injectable drug delivery therapies can have debilitating side effects which significantly decrease quality of life for patients, or can result in fluctuating blood level of the drug, associated with less than optimal therapeutic efficacy. Additionally, these medications often have to be injected frequently, reducing quality of life for patients, and potentially jeopardizing compliance. As an example, exenatide, a 39 amino acid polypeptide is used for the treatment of diabetes. Current therapies require bi-daily or weekly injections. Ideally, a delivery system could be developed that reduces the injection frequency to much lower levels, such as every 3 or 6 months, or even a year.
Recent advances in implantable nanoporous membranes have produced a novel method to control the release of therapeutics, eliminating the concentration spike associated with an injection. Furthermore, subcutaneously implanted devices can increase patient compliance, thereby increasing treatment efficacy while simultaneously reducing side effects. There is a need for more efficacious formulation of protein and peptide drugs to be used in these implantable devices. The present invention meets this and other needs.